


TLDR: Love's a Bird

by UntappedChaos



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Drama & Romance, M/M, TLDR Version
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 03:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13494432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UntappedChaos/pseuds/UntappedChaos
Summary: Love's a bird, here with spring and gone in the winter... but Bunny's snowbird has disappeared with Easter and taken his heart with him.Jack has plans though; his love for Aster isn't nearly as fickle as it first seems.





	TLDR: Love's a Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Too Long Didn't Read Version
> 
> Because if you want to read the long, multi-chapter for-keeps version with extra drama and slow, agonizing angst, you need to leave reviews and tell me it's worth it to do that much work. =v=

It’s spring when Jack shows up in Mother Nature’s gladeland palace.  It’s early March and normally, he would be elbow-deep in eggs and paint with Bunny, but this time he needed his mate just that distracted so a few hours wouldn’t be missed.

“Hey Mom,” he quips, but his smile doesn’t meet his eyes the way it should.  Her lips quirk in a dry way that said she knew something was afoot.  “So I need help.”

“Well,  _ son _ ,” she says, slipping from her throne of vines, “I figured that might be the case.”

 

\---

 

It’s three days instead of three hours before Jack makes it back to the Warren.  Bunny is sulking, pouting, and blustery; they’ve worked on Easter together for how many years?  Decades that were ready to turn into centuries, that was how long.  Jack had never bailed on him, and he was torn between getting mad over it and forgiving him immediately because it was only just this once.

Jack slipped quietly into Aster’s arms, pressing close with quiet kisses.  He was subdued, but not contrite; the Easter Bunny doesn’t know what to make of that, so he gives in to Jack’s silent ministrations.

It’s spring though.  Ten minutes is all Bunny can spare before they’re both painted up like Holi and working on eggs.  Jack doesn’t say much that day.

He doesn’t say much any day after, either.

 

\---

 

Night falls on Easter, and they’re both exhausted.  Bunny sprawls over his bed and can’t bring himself to move.  Jack is sprawled across his chest, listening to his heartbeat.  However much he helps with the painting, Jack Frost cannot hide Easter eggs like the Easter Bunny.  Every year Jack helps herd the eggs to the World Tunnels and then waves goodbye as Aster disappears through one tunnel and another, gone for stretching, lonely hours at a time.

Normally, they would both sleep like the dead for a week after.  Instead, Jack carded his hands through Aster’s ruff, murmuring words of love and sentimentality, promises of bright, beautiful futures laying out before them, oaths of eternity that made his ears quiver.  Jack chinned him the way Aster usually would, then kissed him over and over again.

Jack touched Aster physically, emotionally, and spiritually until wrapping themselves together was the only thing that would satisfy them.  They were mates; they were married in the Pookan way, in the way of Spirits, and in the way of Humans.  If there had been any other hoop to jump through, Aster would have dragged Jack through it with his half-hearted, half-teasing protests lilting off behind them.  Jack always said it so plainly, though.

_ “You’re mine, Roo.  Ceremony or no ceremony —  _ _ any _ _ ceremony, you dork  — makes no difference to me.” _

Tonight though, Jack wound his arms around Aster’s neck, covering him with kisses.  He whispered brokenly, over and over,  _ I love you.  Love you.  Mine.  Always.  Promise.  Swear.  Swear it.  On my life. _

Just before Aster fell asleep though, Jack said,  _ You have to believe in me _ , and that was somehow a scary thought.

 

\---

 

The morning after Easter, the East Wind drops Jack in the gladeland palace of Mother Nature.  She smiles, opens her arms, and Jack leans into the embrace feeling weaker than ever.  It’s not just his powers fading out with the season; it’s the already heavy emotional strain that eats away at him.

“You knew this was necessary,” she murmured.  Jack nodded, letting her comfort him in her way.  “You won’t be able to leave here until I say so.”

He nodded at that too.

“It’s okay Mom,” he mutters in the driest of humor, “I know.  You’ve got to keep me here no matter what.  Don’t let me mess up now.”

 

\---

 

A year has passed since Jack disappeared, and Aster has drowned in his depression.  Months of searching the earth over for Jack’s energy gave way into tears of grief, to rage at injustice, and finally, the deadly calm that came with hopelessness.  Aster knows all too well what it is like to lose those most precious.  While he builds up hope and life for the world, he feeds himself a steady diet of despair.

Jack left and took Aster’s heart with him.  Disappeared, leaving a black hole into which all goodness and light disappeared.  Emaciated, a ghost of fur and bones, the Easter Bunny has little left to give; all he can do is continue protecting the children, and he hides eggs as always.  He could stop.  He could stop, let their faith fade away, and soon enough he would disappear altogether, no longer the last of his kind.

His heartache would go with him.  Love is a fickle bird, and his snowy nightingale had disappeared, taking the last warmth in Aster’s heart with him.

 

\---

 

Jack cried and struggled in Mother Nature’s arms.  The Northern Lights swam overhead, and no human would be able to decipher just how urgently they flickered.  A stone the size of Rushmore settled in Jack’s gut.

Bunny was in trouble.  They were all in trouble, but the horrible feeling hanging on to his body said that  _ Bunny _ was in trouble; Jack had nightmares that supplied him with all the horrible things Aster might do to himself, all the things he probably  _ was _ doing to himself.  Aster was the Guardian of Hope, but he was frail and weak-hearted, a male with so much love, so much adoration to give… and he had given it all to Jack.  All his good feelings, all the progress that was made since the destruction of his race… Jack cried as his heart broke, knowing that somewhere, the one he loved as likely barely holding himself together.

Might be thinking about ending it just to stop the pain.

Mother Nature stroked his hair, tucking his face against her neck.  She was pained for him.  All posturing aside, he was essentially her child; her beloved, mischievous winter sprite.

Around them, small bundles of fur slept on in blissful ignorance.  She stroked them each in turn, feeding them a small bit of magic.

 

\---

 

Three years had passed, and Bunny felt the pain still fresh every morning, waking to a nest empty of his mate.  No frost dusted the mossy twigs, the smell of ice long gone from the pelts and soft grasses that made their bedding.  Headily wafting flowers, peat moss, and loam seemed to overwhelm his senses in a way they hadn’t before winter’s favorite child became his to love and hold.

This was Easter Morning though, and he had eggs to hide.

He ate without feeling hunger or satisfaction and drank without feeling thirst or relief.  A step outside to perfect, eternal spring showed him a splendor that had long since faded out of interest.  With a warbling whistle, he called to his googies, ready to head out.

Not a one came though.

Wind wended through the artificial spaces, but no fanciful eggs came running to his call.  Silence seemed to overwhelm his ears until…

A giggle.

A snicker, a snort.

The thump of a foot, the sound of passage through grass, and suddenly one scent that managed to linger on long enough for him to find: fur and snow.  It smelled like the nest should like it would every morning after a night spent with Jack.  It smelled like love and family, and…

_ Family _ .

Oh God, that was  _ exactly _ what it smelled like.

Just then he saw signs of white fur scarpering to his left, and two quick leaps had him falling into a tunnel he didn’t remember.  The exit opened to a familiar scene that he’d avoided like bad eggs; Burgess Lake sparkled with late spring ice.

Standing there, in a patch of snowbells he remembered planting as a sign of peace years upon years ago, was Jack.  It was  _ Jack _ , and he stood there smiling and crying just like Aster was.  This was the smell, the fullness of heart he’d been missing; there was his love, his life’s mate, and around his feet…

Well, around his feet were seven snowy pooka kits, all blinking up at him with blue eyes full of hope and wonder. 


End file.
